Excellent point. Democracy is not an end in itself . It’s a vehicle. I subscribe to the ( maybe apocryphal) statement by Winston Churchill that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.By the way isn’t it interesting that people perceive free speech as a threat to democracy. Of course it is. What they want is a manipulable mass who democratically give the elite vanguard what they want. Discussion renders democratic or autocratic manipulations much harder because elites face a challenge and they don’t like that.
A peeve / reconsider your use of. BCE instead of BC. BCE is an expression of something that I think is disagreeable . They denote exactly the same thing but the C must go for somewhat obvious reasons. I think Common Era is even worse. Common Era ?
I always liked that Churchill quote, and tend to agree with it. (Depending on what one means by "democracy," of course. If we simply mean a constitutional system in which citizens can vote in leaders, I have no hostility to democratic government.)
Further thought-The government [...] cannot be anything other than the organization of a minority. It is the aim of this minority to impose upon the rest of society a 'legal order', which is the outcome of the exigencies of dominion and of the exploitation of the mass of helots effected by the ruling minority, and can never be truly representative of the majority.
Robert Michels
Tags: poltical
Like Likes: 8
Organization implies a tendency to oligarchy. In every organization, whether it be a political party, a professional union, or any other association of any kind, the aristocratic tendency manifests itself very clearly. As a result of organization, every party or professional union becomes divided into a minority of directors and a majority of directed.
Many, many years ago, I explained to my son (now 52) that democracy is basically rule by a voting majority of the authorized electors*, whether that be the majority of a family, town council, or a country, etc. That is, I see “democracy” as more about getting, or changing, a governing body than it is an actual government. I think of “democracy” as a civic process that can result in a “democratically” elected monarchy, theocracy, oligarchy, dictatorship, etc., or representative government, aka, a republic.
Your comment re: Athens reminded me of Will Durant’s observations on the long struggles of the ancient Greeks to perfect democracy (The Story of Civilization, book 2, The Life of Greece, Chapter XI, “Pericles and the Democratic Experiment”), as one of my long-standing peeves is the lack of accountability in government. In the section on “Athenian Democracy” he noted: “New legislation may be proposed only at the first session of each month, and the member who offers it is held responsible for the result of its adoption; if these are seriously evil, another member may within a year of the vote invoke upon him the ‘graphe paranomon’, or writ of illegality, and have him fined, disfranchised, or put to death; this is Athens’ way of discouraging hasty legislation.”
I’m not sure I’d go so far as a death sentence, but it does illustrate that the problem of accountability seems to be as old as government.
*According to J. Stalin, it’s “the people who count the votes….”who decide an election. That’s no doubt true when it comes to rigging an election outcome once the votes are already cast, but, since it’s possible to guard against dishonest counter, I think it’s the people who are authorized to vote in the first place that’s more important. Imagine if our authorized electorate consisted of only parents with $100,000 in the bank; or business owners, or college graduates, or 12-year-olds, etc.
In America, there is a procedure under the 9th Amendment called a Writ of Quo Warranto for ousting any orally corrupt or incompetent officials from office. Quo Warranto means "by what authority?" Any citizen can file such an action by writing the Attorney General, explaining the situation and asking the AG to take the acting. There are 3 questions to be asked of the particular official in question, 1. Was your office obtained lawfully or under some legitimate authority?, 2, Did you take any action in your official capacity that was forbidden by law?, and 3. Did you fail to take any action required by law for your position? If the answer to #1 is 'No' and to #2 and #3 is 'Yes' then there is grounds for ousting that official from office. Or, since all officials can't correctly respond to all 3 questions, all can be ousted and we are free.
At the time of America's Founding, professor Alexander Frazer Tytler wrote, 'Democracy can never exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until voters discover they can vote themselves largesse out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the Treasury resulting in the collapse of government due to a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by dictatorship." The Founders hated democracy and that is why they made government here a republic limits by the Constitution. But no one ever understood the limits of owner or the trillions of rights it protected so we ended up with tyranny.
Excellent point. Democracy is not an end in itself . It’s a vehicle. I subscribe to the ( maybe apocryphal) statement by Winston Churchill that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.By the way isn’t it interesting that people perceive free speech as a threat to democracy. Of course it is. What they want is a manipulable mass who democratically give the elite vanguard what they want. Discussion renders democratic or autocratic manipulations much harder because elites face a challenge and they don’t like that.
A peeve / reconsider your use of. BCE instead of BC. BCE is an expression of something that I think is disagreeable . They denote exactly the same thing but the C must go for somewhat obvious reasons. I think Common Era is even worse. Common Era ?
I always liked that Churchill quote, and tend to agree with it. (Depending on what one means by "democracy," of course. If we simply mean a constitutional system in which citizens can vote in leaders, I have no hostility to democratic government.)
Further thought-The government [...] cannot be anything other than the organization of a minority. It is the aim of this minority to impose upon the rest of society a 'legal order', which is the outcome of the exigencies of dominion and of the exploitation of the mass of helots effected by the ruling minority, and can never be truly representative of the majority.
Robert Michels
Tags: poltical
Like Likes: 8
Organization implies a tendency to oligarchy. In every organization, whether it be a political party, a professional union, or any other association of any kind, the aristocratic tendency manifests itself very clearly. As a result of organization, every party or professional union becomes divided into a minority of directors and a majority of directed.
Bravo ... Well said💪😊👍👌
Many, many years ago, I explained to my son (now 52) that democracy is basically rule by a voting majority of the authorized electors*, whether that be the majority of a family, town council, or a country, etc. That is, I see “democracy” as more about getting, or changing, a governing body than it is an actual government. I think of “democracy” as a civic process that can result in a “democratically” elected monarchy, theocracy, oligarchy, dictatorship, etc., or representative government, aka, a republic.
Your comment re: Athens reminded me of Will Durant’s observations on the long struggles of the ancient Greeks to perfect democracy (The Story of Civilization, book 2, The Life of Greece, Chapter XI, “Pericles and the Democratic Experiment”), as one of my long-standing peeves is the lack of accountability in government. In the section on “Athenian Democracy” he noted: “New legislation may be proposed only at the first session of each month, and the member who offers it is held responsible for the result of its adoption; if these are seriously evil, another member may within a year of the vote invoke upon him the ‘graphe paranomon’, or writ of illegality, and have him fined, disfranchised, or put to death; this is Athens’ way of discouraging hasty legislation.”
I’m not sure I’d go so far as a death sentence, but it does illustrate that the problem of accountability seems to be as old as government.
*According to J. Stalin, it’s “the people who count the votes….”who decide an election. That’s no doubt true when it comes to rigging an election outcome once the votes are already cast, but, since it’s possible to guard against dishonest counter, I think it’s the people who are authorized to vote in the first place that’s more important. Imagine if our authorized electorate consisted of only parents with $100,000 in the bank; or business owners, or college graduates, or 12-year-olds, etc.
In America, there is a procedure under the 9th Amendment called a Writ of Quo Warranto for ousting any orally corrupt or incompetent officials from office. Quo Warranto means "by what authority?" Any citizen can file such an action by writing the Attorney General, explaining the situation and asking the AG to take the acting. There are 3 questions to be asked of the particular official in question, 1. Was your office obtained lawfully or under some legitimate authority?, 2, Did you take any action in your official capacity that was forbidden by law?, and 3. Did you fail to take any action required by law for your position? If the answer to #1 is 'No' and to #2 and #3 is 'Yes' then there is grounds for ousting that official from office. Or, since all officials can't correctly respond to all 3 questions, all can be ousted and we are free.
At the time of America's Founding, professor Alexander Frazer Tytler wrote, 'Democracy can never exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until voters discover they can vote themselves largesse out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the Treasury resulting in the collapse of government due to a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by dictatorship." The Founders hated democracy and that is why they made government here a republic limits by the Constitution. But no one ever understood the limits of owner or the trillions of rights it protected so we ended up with tyranny.